strike work

verb3

1. •
   (old-fashioned) To stop working (for a break, at the end of the work day, etc.).

   • Come down on Friday. There is a train leaves London Bridge at two—gets here at four. By that time I shall be ready to strike work. — 1848
2. •
   (India, old-fashioned) To go on strike.

   • About nine hundred bakers, it is said, struck work on Saturday night, in consequence of their wages not being raised. — 1799
3. •
   (figurative, old-fashioned) To stop functioning.

   • These auroras were accompanied with unusually great electro-magnetic disturbances in every part of the world. In many places the telegraph wires struck work. — 1877